Wednesday, 13 July 2016

Derwent Aquatone pencils


Had been looking for watercolours in amongst my materials and found these three pencils, Derwent Aqua tone, solid sticks of pure watercolour that can be used in a range of ways. They are usable as pencils and can be sharpened, or broken into small pieces to which water is added, or ground into pigment. The three colours I have are 36/indigo, 49/sap green and 65/burnt carmine. They are heavier in weight than normal coloured pencils.


I chose to use them as water soluble pencils, drawing and shading with them and then adding water with a fine paintbrush. The watercolour quality is good and they can be shaded over one another to create mixes of colour. When sharpening them the curls could be kept to mix with water on a palette.


Using a graphite pencil I sketched an idea, a faun type pixie against flowers and other plants. I used heavyweight card as I didn't have watercolour paper.


Using a Crayola Pro pencil in violet I drew the fine line version over the sketch and erased both graphite and some of the violet pencil. I've noticed other artists using coloured pencil instead of black fineliner to 'ink up' the drawing ready for colouring. I chose violet as it would fade behind either the Burnt Carmine or Indigo Aquatones.


The Aquatones have a different texture to that of ordinary coloured pencils and I had to plan which colour to use in conjunction with another as I'd be using water to mix on paper.


Using water and a paintbrush I began to go over the lines, softening them although the result was closer to soluble pencils than using watercolour paint. A grainy effect remained. 


First time using the Aquatone pencils was interesting and I'll try using them again though using different applications.


Links:
Aquatone website


Copyright © 2016 by Roisin O'Hagan/bloowabbit
All rights reserved. The artworks/illustrations or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the artist except for specific permission granted with a free downloadable.

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